say) that he is an enemy to Parliament who goes further. If, from your general wish to support the Minister, or from your attachment to Lord Camden, or from a conscientious opinion upon the subject, you cannot think as I do, at least absent yourself upon this occasion, and do not distress me so far as to make me appear to hold two languages, at the same time that you oppose one of the most decided political tenets I can ever form, and oppose it with the weapon I have put into your hands.

"As to the democratical principle, how far that is likely to be gratified by enabling three or four great families in every county (generally Peers) to add to their influence in the House of Commons, or by rendering such additional influence still more powerful in extinguishing the balance of the open boroughs, I leave to your reflection. I profess to wish that power and property may go together, and am therefore not very anxious for the Plebeian system.

"All I shall add is, that, if I were to consider only my own emolument and that of my son (for I look no further), I should be happy that any scheme took place that would enable me to convert my privilege into an increase of income, which is a far more solid advantage than what is called importance and consideration. Weigh all this calmly in your own mind, and assure yourself that no difference of opinion will ever make an alteration in the affectionate regard with which I am faithfully CAMELFORD."

Yours,

13. "MY DEAr Hardinge,

Feb. 19, 1785.

your

Every day convinces me, that, as no man can think for another, so neither can one man feel for another. I perfectly acquit you upon the assurances you give me of any bias in mind but what arises from your own judgment upon this occasion. I have only to lament that your judgment and your feeling are not the same with mine upon it. As I recollect, the reason why the delay in presenting your return was thought more delicate was, that you might not seem to take your seat with a view, one way or other, to such a question. When you offered to resign your seat to me, after having voted on Sawbridge's motion, I certainly should have thought myself much to blame to have accepted it; but so far was I from knowing your ideas upon the Reform, that I have not at this hour a conception either of the principles or the mode you would wish to adopt in that reformation.

"At this moment neither you nor I are acquainted with the plan Mr. Pitt has adopted; all we know with certainty is, that any augmentation of County Members alone is quite unsatisfactory to the wishes of the reformers, and in the teeth of their professed principles, either of democracy or equality in pro

portion, or the right of actual representation; and that any extinction of boroughs, without proof of delinquency or forfeiture, is either an act of arbitrary violence, and therefore in every sense of the word unconstitutional, or it is liable to objections insuperable if it is attemped to be put into a shape that will make it optional without injustice.

"Do not imagine, however, my dear friend, that I wish to persuade you against your conviction; use your own discretion, act upon your own feelings in perfect freedom; all I have to beg of you is, that, if you apprehend your duty obliges you to take a part contrary to my opinions, you will at the same time find an opportunity of making it clearly understood, that it is so far from being in concert with me, that it is in direct opposition to those sentiments which I have so repeatedly declared, and which I shall entertain to my dying day.

"Having now explained our thoughts to each other freely on both sides, let us drop the subject, and hope that it will be the only important one upon which there will ever be such a difference of sentiment between you and your faithful and affectionate, CAMELFORD."

14.

"July 8, 1787.

"A truce with your dragons, my good friend! Before your letter reached me they had, or ought to have had, a good sop. If you have not received a long letter from me, full of rocks and woods and watered valleys, and cloud-capped mountains, &c. &c. &c. it is not my fault; even my conscientious helpmate would not scruple to make her affidavit that I sent it; let the Duc de Polignac, who is Post-master-general of France, answer for the rest.. I have been ill indeed, but it was before I left Montpellier, almost six weeks ago. I was seized with an alarming giddiness, which confined me to my room, and almost to my bed for a fortnight. They said it was a mixture of gout, nerves, and bile; they applied leeches, blisters, and sinapisms externally, and antimonial medicines internally, and I got well, though weakened most exceedingly. My head is at times weak, and my old head-ache goes on as usual; and I have lately had a slight touch of gout in my heel, and every body says I am in beauty, and that I am si bien constitué, that I ought to live to one hundred. If I lived here constantly, so I should, for it is a proverb in these mountains, that qu'il faut apommer les viellards pour les faire mourir; it is common to see people between eighty and ninety. We were talking upon this subject the other day, when a vieux militaire, who had served in the wars of Savoy and Piedmont, said a peasant of the Alps had told him, that thank God he could still walk well enough up and down the hills, but he was grown too old to walk upon plain ground without fatigue. I thought I had known understandings of

that kind in my life, who are equal to difficulties, but totally unfit for the path of common life.

"I sent

some wretched puns some months ago, but did not sign my name. I will tell you one that I thought perfect; the Bishop of Alais, visiting a Rector in this neighbourhood who was very rich and very avaricious, gave him some gentle hint of the character he had heard of him, Mais Monsieur,' says the man, 'il faut garder une Poire pour la soif.' Vous avez bien raison,' replies the Bishop, 'prenez garde seulement qu'elle soit du bon Chrêtien.'

"Is it not provoking to be laid by the heel in a country where every step is a picture for Salvator Rosa, or at least for a Poussin. What would I give to hire a pair of legs! I have the plague also of weariness when I ride for above an hour, which carries me to no great distance, and I want to explore every thing. I rise between five and six, dine at two, and go to bed very sleepy at ten. We have had two or three days of sultry heat, but rains came to our assistance; and though my good woman complains (for women, Lord North says, are always hot or cold, and have no business to be either), in general the weather has been very delightful, at least for those who can sit still; the mornings and evenings charming to be sure. We caught seven or eight scorpions in our rooms one day, but nobody yet has been stung by them; and it is not so painful or so troublesome as the sting of a wasp when they happen to sting, which must often happen. The quantities of flies are to me a greater inconvenience; I hold the pen with one hand, at this moment, and a fly-flapper in the other; there is no peace for them but by living in utter darkness. My apartment opens to a parterre, with shady bosquets and fountains of chrystal, ending in a terrace, that, under the cover of lines of horsechesnuts, commands the valley beneath, with its rocky winding channel of a river, over which are two bridges. The meadows in the plain are just mown, and as green as Twickenham, dotted with mulberries and fruit trees, and here and there an old park-like chesnut-tree; the skirts of the hills verdant with vines and copse chesnut-trees, which are used for cooperage, and make a considerable branch of commerce where there are no vines; and the bare bold cliffs of high mountains close in the whole and form the frame of the picture. Two considerable villages are seen upon the sides of hills, and little buildings are scattered every where. There are goats upon every rock, led always by Menalcas's and Thestylis's, and so tame that my young people, who have made themselves peasants' dresses, lead them about in the garden.

"Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata Lycori.

"Virgil and Horace breathe in every scene; and you, who are classic all over, would recollect some favourite passage at every step.

15.

Adieu!"

"July 10, 1787.

"You liked my pun, so I give you a better thing. When the Spanish Dauphine passed through France to Paris, Bourdeaux received her and her suite with extraordinary magnificence. The Duchesse de Caumont had a cabinet fitted up for her at the house of a President, at God knows what expense, but she tossed up her nose at it, and was seen by Montesquieu in the anti-room of the Dauphine as he was going to pay his Court. Que faite vous, la Madame la Duchesse?' 'Je m'échauffe, vous sentez bien que je n'ai rien où je suis logé; mais vous, President, comment pouvez vous abandonner Paris pour une Société de Campagne que fait on ici de grace? dites moi un peu, et vos Presidentes, elles font ici les Duchesses je m'imagine.' 'Oh, non Madame! pardonnez moi, elles ne sont pas assez impertinentes.'

"And so our Montesquieu Thurlow does not forgive you, and sits on your skirts, does he? tu l'a voulu, George Dandin, qu'aviez vous a faire dans cette galére.

"If Hastings is to be tried by our tribunal on his private virtues of friendship and of gratitude, my vote would be ready. He never made a better return to his friends for past services than his country does to him for his; there is a poetical justice in the ingratitude that overtakes him. Poor General Cowper * has good reason to hate him; and so much part do I take in my friend's resentment, that, though I have not been very hostile to him as a public man, and should have more curiosity to be acquainted with him than any man living, I have constantly refused to meet him, and have never seen his face. Great men are things to read about, and sometimes to admire, but hardly ever to be loved: they have weaknesses; but they soon wear out affections, if indeed they are ever born with them. Had you been fortunate enough to have been Thurlow's brother, you had been Bishop of Durham; as you are, a Welsh judge must serve your turn, and that is better than nothing to begin with.

Spencer Cowper, Esq. a General in the army, was second cousin of George third Earl Cowper, and first cousin of the Poet. He was second son of William Cowper, Esq. Clerk of the Parliaments, who died Feb. 22, 1739-40, by Joan, daughter of John Budget, Esq. He attained the rank of Lieut.-col. 1759, Colonel 1772, Major general 1779, and Lieut.-General in 1787. His regiment was the 1st Foot Guards and he was Lieut.-governor of Tynemouth. He died at Ham Common, March 13, 1797, aged 73. By Charlotte daughter of John Baker, Esq. who died at Ham Cummon before her husband, he had issue: 1. Spencer, who died an infant; 2. William; 3. Henry Cowper, of Tewin Water in Hertfordshire, Esquire, late Assistant Clerk of the Parliaments, and who married his first cousin Maria-Judith, daughter of Major William Cowper, but was left without children on her death in 1815; and 4. a daughter, Jane.

As you say nothing of your re-election, I conclude you are tired of St. Stephen's Chapel, or disdain to represent the muttons, as Lord Mount Eliot calls the electors, with a bell-weather for the returning officer. I wish my good cousin would learn to add to his great talents and sterling virtues, the pretty and sweet manners' which your friend Shakspeare says draws tears into one's eyes; but we are as it pleases God, and sometimes as it displeases him. Look, for example, in my face, and that of and say which is the jew. Because he persuaded me to let him my house at Petersham for nothing, he thinks I will sell it him at the same rate; but he is mistaken. If I get a fair price for it, why so; if not, I will even live myself in it; and that I may not have the plague of three houses, which are more than I can live in, I will let my palace in Oxford-street till my son is old enough to marry and live in it. Thus I make my jewish calculation, and I care not who knows it; a place for which old Lord Harrington refused 20,000 guineas, I bought in the worst of times and in the worst condition, under .8000; the first repairs cost me above £.2000 more; my purchase of the Crown to convert leasehold into freehold, brings it up to £.12,000; the alterations of the ground, additional repairs and improvements, considerably to above .13,000; for my furniture, for the improved value of the premises above the money I actually paid the Crown, and for the increased value of all property between 1780, in Lord North's happy administration, and Mr. Pitt's 1787, whom God long preserve; for all these considerations, I say, put £2,000, which brings it up to my selling price of £.15,000.

"To return to our General, whose idea is always connected in my mind with India, I do not wonder that you delight in him; he is of the true stuff; would to God his health did not keep his friends in a perpetual alarm for him. I conclude, as so many powers have armed, the Dutch will be made to keep the King's peace; raccommodez vous, canaille, is all that should be said to them, and if they do not instantly obey, the dykes should be cut and the frogs set a swimming."

"Rome, Jan. 12, 1788. "This letter will be carried to England by Lord Belgrave, Lord Grosvenor's son, and delivered to you with a packet from hence, together with a letter from me to the Minister. The artists, fully persuaded of the influence I have with my relation, have employed me to get them released from the taxes they now pay upon the introduction of their own studies and performances, and the models which are necessary for the exercise of their professions. I am liberal enough to conceive, that the specimens of the fine arts are by no means objects of taxation, but